Salton Sea Impressions — Silent Eco-disaster

In the Winter of 2011, I made my second photo-exploration of the Salton Sea in Southern California to continue my study of the environmental impact of the local economy on the region and am now working toward a return to the area for a future photographic project. This eco-disaster is complex: as this salt lake dehydrates, the toxins from the Mexicali-Calimex food industry's phospates and computer industry contaminants concentrate, which in turn kills the fish, birds and plant life. As a result, the shore of the Salton Sea is ringed with layers of dead fish and birds; the stench of dead marine life hovers over a series of ghost towns built with the intention of a recreational paradise in the desert. It is simultaneously seductively surreal and an outrage. In my investigative quest for the poetic, my photography addresses the nature of permanence and impermanence by asking, “What remains?”